


GAR Requsitions

by TessaDoesThings



Series: Tessa's Soft Wars [1]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: ... I think?, Clones, Coruscant (Star Wars), Drinking, GAR Requistions Office, Gen, Humor, Paperwork Clones, Sheevy P messing things up by accident, Soft Wars, Star Wars AU - Soft Wars, feelings about shinies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:49:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24784147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TessaDoesThings/pseuds/TessaDoesThings
Summary: Far from any firefight or separatist droid, the clones of Coruscant face an entirely different set of challenges. But, while Commander Fox leads the gallant disaster that is The Guard, across the way from them is an entirely different speeder wreck in progress. Buried halfway under paperwork, it's the Grand Army of the Republic Requisitions Office.They're charged with keeping all of the battalions of their brothers stocked with whatever they need, despite the best efforts of any and all politicians, pirates, and paperwork (the terrible triad) which may... make it more difficult. Mostly by accident.Really, there hasn't been a GAR in centuries, you think anyone in the Senate has updated the bureaucratic procedures since then? Really? You have more faith then me!
Series: Tessa's Soft Wars [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1829968
Comments: 62
Kudos: 181
Collections: Open Source Soft Wars





	1. Figures, not the Ultimate Math Vod

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [When on your journeys you meet a countryman](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24735655) by [Project0506](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506). 



> Hey! So! This was inspired by Soft Wars (written by the amazing Project0506), and in particular, the story When on your journeys you meet a countryman.  
> Here's what you need to know: There's one line in it where a CC falls for a prank set up by the CTs, Rex & Keeli. They don't have a name, or anything really, but they're the CTs know they're eavesdropping and end up saying fake shit about how CT's decide who the youngest is just to mess with them, and then overhear someone say in response: “Is that how they figure it?” they mutter. “I knew the CT numbers didn’t make sense.”
> 
> This clone took on a life of his own for me. This clone is now Figure. His batchmates found out about the incident and gave him the name as a joke. It stuck. All the Nat-Born officers are all afraid to ask how he got his name and assume that it is a Math Thing. It isn't. He ended up in requisitions because they thought he was good at math. Our boy is terrible at math, but he makes do.

The door across the room swings shut with a bang, and the sounds of the Nat-Born Officer’s footsteps slowly peter out down the hallway Figure knows is on the other side. The office relaxes as both of its occupants release twin sighs of relief. There’s a beautiful, blissful moment of peace which doesn’t last nearly long enough, before Stu’s breaking out into cackles beside Figure.

“Stop laughing, you asshole!” Figure cries in irrigation, wishing he could dissolve into the floor. It probably wouldn’t be a bad way to go, he thinks as Stu doubles over in laughter. It would be over quick, even. Maybe it wouldn’t be painless, but it had to hurt less than the current, painful, slow death he’s lined up for right now, Figure thinks as he stares mournfully at the fake wooden planks someone had lazily shoved over the metal floor and wishes they would absorb him already.

“Yes Sir. No, the RQ-EX4 graph won’t be a problem, sir. I’ll have it done by tomorrow, sir.” Stu wheezes out between gasping breaths, but he’s doing that _thing_ with his face again that Stu thinks makes his tattoo look like the smaller one Figure has, but it just looks he’s in pain. Figure would know, he’s intimately familiar with that pain. It’s the kind of pain that only makes his soul hurt. “Every- karking- time, Figure! You say yes every time!” Stu chokes out with glee, as though Figure actually had a say, and as though he doesn’t do the same.

“Yes, I’m aware, thank you. I have lost the sleep to prove it.” Figure deadpans back, looking mournfully at his side of the desk he shares with this absolute moron. There’s a stack of datapads there, in varying different colors but not organized by said colors. Or organized at all. It’s looking to be a long day, he mournfully reminds himself as he collapses into the seat next to the desk, wincing a bit. The officer uniform he was wearing today did not protect from the unforgiving seats nearly as well as the standard whites, but regulations were regulations.

“Oh yes, sir, I’ll have no problem with that sir, I’m the number clone, right? The clone whose name means I must be good with numbers?” Stu attempts to deadpan back at him, but approximately halfway through loses control and breaks down into another fit of laughter. Still, he manages to grab the red datapad from between Figure’s fingers, dancing across the room with it and away from where the seated clone could grab it. Figure wishes for Jedi powers right then, so that he could set either his datapad or batchmate on fire with the sheer power of his glare. He’s not picky which one. (Could Jedi do that? Figure wouldn’t know, it’s not like he’s ever met one. Jedi don’t come to the requisitions office.) “Ooo, that’s the scary face. I’m so scared right now. Whatever will I do?”

“Alright, that’s it. You’ve been replaced. I have a new favorite batchmate.” Figure keeps his tone level as he responds, reaching out and grabbing a blue datapad from the stack to his left, and setting it on a rare open spot of table. He then zeros in on another blue datapad in the same stack, and ignores Stu’s rambling protests as he shifts the ‘pads around to add the second blue one to the stack, before looking for another one.

“Wait- wait-. Who am I being replaced by? Who is it? Because if it’s Oron, I’m going to have to pay for a skanking.” Stu comments, dramatically flopping backwards onto his side of the desk, which, Figure notes, is nearly cleared already, and it’s barely noon.

“No, it’s Calc.” Figure snarks right back at him.

“Calc? You like Calc more than me? That absolute shebs? I can’t believe it. This is a betrayal of the highest order. A betrayal of our sacred bond as batchmates.”

“Calc is our batchmate to, ya know.”

“Yeah, but he’s _Calc._ ” Stu moans from where he’s shifted to lying face down on his desk.

“Yeah, he’s a shebs, but when Calc sees a vod drowning in paperwork, he karking does something about it, instead of just laughing while they suffer.”

“I’m sorry Figure, do you, the Ultimate Math Vod, need help crunching these numbers?” Figure very carefully sets a fifth blue datapad on the stack and then takes a deep breath. He slammed his hand down on with so much force that some of the stacks of datapads gave small bounces. The stack of blue pads falls right off the other side of their desk, which Figure would regret, except it gives Figure’s outburst just the right amount of Dramatic Sound Effects.

“You know that I barely passed the mid-level math, right? I’m not actually qualified for this job. Why do I have this job? I would actually rather work in the guard, Stu. The guard! Stop laughing, Stu! Honestly, you have no grounds to call Calc a shebs, you are so much worse! This whole thing is your fault anyway!” The words tumble out in an angry rant, and Figure winces. He hasn’t spoken without his filter ever since The Incident with the CTs back in training (training Figure never actually gets to use) that earned him his name.

“Oh, is that how you Figure it?” Stu responds after several gasping breaths between laughs, putting an extra emphasis on Figure’s name.

“I hate you.” Figure says dryly and promptly goes back to ignoring his batchmate. He takes one of the red datapads from the stack on his right that he had created this morning, and powers it on. From there, he pulls up the main requisitions pad that everyone crunching numbers in the office gets and pulls up the red tab to reveal the list of unclaimed medical supplies for the week. (He's very carefully not thinking about how long his latest assignment will take. He'll finish it last.)

The red ‘pad is from the 43rd, a set of three medical requisitions. The first one is an RQ-MD14. Figure marks that one approved right away, and sends the approved form off to the warehouse right away. He knows that a new shipment of bandages just came in yesterday and that some senator had doubled the count of bandages in an attempt to make up for some stupid thing they’d said on the HoloNet. Besides, there’s never been a shortage of bandages. The next one is RQ-MD3, and a quick glance at the warehouse numbers shows that the Republic must be holding Felucia because there’s no shortage of bacta in storage. He approves that one as well.

The final form is an RQ-MD11, and Figure winces. There had been some issues with pirates last week, and the shipment that had been stolen had included the stims for the next couple of weeks. He checks the main ‘pad again and winces. Yeah, they’re running dangerously low now. Figure might struggle with finding the patterns between requisitions in the mass of battalions in the GAR, but even he can tell that the number on the screen is four digits smaller than it should be. It hurts, but he denies the request, it’s not marked urgent. The next one might be. Figure puts the datapad into the box to be taken back into rotation.

In the back of Figure’s mind, he realizes he can hear himself think again. He glances up to see that Stu has stopped laughing, and has sat down opposite from him. There’s also the stack of the five blue datapads on his desk instead of on Figure’s. He watches as his batchmate checks the numbers on the pad on top, imputing them into the algorithm that the more number-wise vod had created to help track & graph the numbers into something that whatever Senate committee ordered this review can read. Figure hid a small smile, reaching for the green pad that had come in from the 212th yesterday.


	2. The Great Records Hunt

“With all due respect, sir, they just aren’t there.” Stu finds himself repeating for what must be the fortieth time today. He’s been standing attention for this whole comm call, which is starting to drag on painfully long. Stu’s leg is beginning to tingle from being locked for too long, and he has to fight to keep his arm up. It feels like the limb has suddenly doubled in weight.

“Well, clone, the records of every shipment of every Republic controlled substance all end up in basement C-17, so clearly you must be overlooking it.” Stu stifles a twitch at that. He knows that the Nat-born isn’t trying to be rude. All the same, the Lieutenant’s tone makes it clear that he’s as tired of this call as Stu is, and that he has no interest in offering any further assistance.

“Understood, Sir.” Stu says, and flicks a kark-you salute at the man before disconnecting the call.

“That- that sounded like a headache.” Figure’s standing in the doorway of their broom-closet office, another crate of datapads in his arms, each full of the unprocessed requisitions that will inevitably eat through Stu’s brother’s lunch break and have him working late. He really should delegate some of that to the CTs, but Figure claims he has always been awkward around CTs after the incident in ARC training. He’ll send out a memo at the start of the day and refuse to adjust their workload after that unless he absolutely has to. Really, Figure thinks that Stu hasn’t noticed that his men always have a full lunch break and sign out exactly when their shifts end? Softy.

“The Lieutenant insists that the records of the bacta shipments from the last years must be in basement C-17, but I’ve been down there twice already today, and they’re not there. Twice! Do you have any idea how many stairs that is? It’s a lot of stairs.” Stu eases out from his salute. His arm dropping to his side is a deep relief, and Stu avoids releasing a moan as his knees unlock and begin to tingle as the blood flow returns to them. His poor legs. Still, Figure has that look on his face, the one that promises mischief.

“And you’re sure you didn’t miss it? Absolutely sure? There’s no way they’re actually right there, one shelf above your line of sight like last time?” Stu could feel his eyebrow twitch.

“Yes, I’m sure! I looked through every crate, Figure! I opened most of them! Most of them are full of flimsy, Figure! Literal centuries worth of flimsy, Figure! I’m going to be seeing sheets of flimsy in my sleep now.” Figure just responds with a small smirk, and that’s enough to send Stu into hysterical, rage-fueled cackles. Stu doubles over, but he’s distantly aware of Figure crossing over to his own side of their desk and setting down his burden on the solid wooden surface, even as the sounds coming out of Stu’s mouth sound less like rage and more like sobs of exhaustion. It takes a couple of minutes, but Stu feels less like he’s going to explode.

“Is it all the records that are missing? That aren’t where they’re supposed to be?” Figure asks softly once Stu regains control of himself.

“Just the ones older than two years. But the records of the spice shipments down there go back over a century, and that’s a controlled substance the same as bacta.” Stu’s voice is calm now, and it’s easy to manage that now. Figure stews on that for a moment, and Stu watches his favorite batchmate collect his thoughts. 

“But they only made bacta a controlled substance at the start of the war, right? When they were trying to create a stockpile. So that would be when they started keeping the records of its shipments the way they do spice.” Figure reasons out loud.

“This is why you’re my favorite batchmate!” Stu lets his face break out into a huge grin. “Wait, does that mean they don’t have records older than that? Because I really need older records!” Stu’s grin falters with realization. Figure shrugs.

“No clue. But if someone does have records of that, Oron would probably know, though. Nobody knows the Senate records like he does.” Stu lets out a sigh.

“Well, that figures.” Stu’s batchmate glares at him, but he slides Stu’s comm to him from where he had set it on the desk. Feeling like he’s on a slow death march, Stu plugs in Oron’s personal comm code, and dials. It rings four times, and Stu’s about to give up when the call goes through. His batchmate flickers into blue hologram form. The first thing Stu notices is that Oron’s done his hair differently again. He’s shaved the left side of his head, and only the left side. It looks ridiculous, especially when paired with the huge dark rings under his eyes.

“You look terrible, Warehouse Commander.” Is Oron’s opening line, the hypocrite.

“I’m not the ones with bags under my eyes so deep that I look like a creature that would be found eating garbage on a lower level, ‘Oron.” He bites back.

“You look a twig. Like all of your muscles have given up from sitting behind a desk too long.”

“Your face is going to freeze into a frown like that, and then what will you do when you escape The Senate?”

“Oh please, like you ever get out of your closet.”

“At least I have an office, unlike some I could mention.”

“I have a whole empty sub-basement!”

“So, you’ve embraced your true form as a creature of the dark, now have you?” Stu smirks as the jests fly back and forth as easily as when they were cadets.

“Maybe I have!”

“What will you do then, Commander?” Stu placed a heavy emphasis on the word, drawing it out. “The regs hardly cover that kind of creature.”

“At least I don’t have to report to an officer every tenday for a new type of violation!” ‘Oron shot back.

“No, you only have to do so when you snap and call a whole committee of senators… what was it again?” A flush is just barely visible through the hologram.

“Karking nerfherder ‘orons,” Figure offers absently because he’s Stu’s best batchmate.

“Are we still harping on about that? It’s been years!”

“One. It’s been one year, and we’re not harping on it, we’re keeping the story of your name alive for generations of shinies to come!” Stu responds with his best what-did-I-do grin. No one looks impressed.

“We… Requisitions Commander, is that you? Commander Figure, you never comm!” ‘Oron switches entirely to ignoring Stu, rotating around to try to spot the other commander.

“I hate to break up your little… reunion, your greeting ritual with Stu, Oron, but we actually commed for a work reason.” Figure responds, sending one of his disappointed glares at Stu. Stu ignores him.

“Of course you did.” Oron sighs, and now Stu almost feels bad. Almost.

“Well-” Stu starts.

“Do you know if any of the senate committees kept records of bacta shipments pre-war?” Figure cuts him off with a knowing look. That look speaks volumes. That look says to stop fooling around and to get some work done. He’d learned that look on Kamino from Alpha-36. Stu instinctively shuts up.

“The Committee on Outer Rim Medical Care kept some, but I don’t know if it was for the whole republic or just the outer rim. But the previous Corellian senator was involved in that one, and from what I’ve seen their records are always really complete. Likely because of the about a smuggling problem back on Corellia.” Stu shoots a beaming smile at Oron. Then he hangs up without warning.

“Good luck in records!” Figure responds with a smirk that does not match the silky sweet tone of his voice. Lil’ shebs [2].

o – o – o – o

376 stairs later, Stu is reminded of just how much he hates The Senate Basement. The Senate Basement is 35 floors below the lowest level of The Senate, supposedly to ensure that the records would be as secure as possible. Stu is pretty sure that it’s all a plot to get back at poorly behaved senate aids, and that he’s caught in the trap as well. Still, the Warehouse Commander does eventually reach the bottom of the staircase. He pulls out the plastic id card that he stole from Oron last time they went drinking, that’s issued to every member of the Records department, and waves it over the lock. The door swings open, and Stu heads into The Senate Basement.

Heading inside of The Senate Basement, Stu steps into a room larger than his shared office. There’s a vod standing next to a pair of tables shoved in the corner. He’s got a stack of boxes piled on top of the table. Stu doesn’t recognize him but can tell that the vod immediately clocks that Stu, despite the regalia on his armor marking him as command, lacks the strap that goes across the chest of every vod in records. Stu can also tell immediately that the other vod could not care less that he is here.

“Welcome to our own little piece of Felucia, [3] Commander.” He deadpanned. Stu gave a snort.

“Or perhaps Felucia is a little slice of The Senate Basement. At least there, victories can temporarily be scraped out. Here, you just win another stack of flimsy.” Stu responds, and that gets a smirk from the other vod.

“Whatever you’re looking for, sir, the directory is on the reception desk.” The reception desk is in the middle of the room, covered in a thick layer of dust. There’s a sign on the desk that reads _back when emergency session concludes_. The sign isn’t dated, but it’s covered in just as much dust as everything around it. Stu ducks around behind the desk, and spots that where he might expect a computer or droid terminal to be, instead there is a large tome, easily three or four arms wide. Stu lets out a groan. The other vod’s response is drowned out by the loud thump that the book makes as he flips it open.

Stu flips to the most recent table of contents, which is organized by committee, scanning down through the pages to find the Outer Rim Medical Care committee, only to discover that the committees were not, in fact, organized by alphabetical order. Stu let out a long sigh and began to read through the small handwriting page-by-page. He eventually found what he was looking for on the third page of the table of contents, and kriff did he wish that this had been done on a datapad instead. For some reason, the committee was located between the Lahara Shipping committee and The Committee on Literacy on Mon Cala. There were 20 reports listed under the table of contents, each one next to the sub-basement, they were in, but it was clear that not enough space had been left on the page as the words became more and more cramped, in smaller and smaller print. The final line was so small that Stu wasn’t sure it was actually Aurebresh anymore.

Stu fumbled with the side of his helmet until he found the switch that turned the light on the side of his helmet on, and used the light to decipher the fine print, until he could make out the word bacta on the fifth line from the bottom. From there, Stu ran his finger across the line until he found that it was listed in the third sub-sector of the Outer Rim level. 

“Vod, where can I find the Outer Rim level?” Stu across the room. The vod from records looked up from his documents. He was in his greys, so Stu could see the wrinkles that appeared on his face.

“Outer Rim level? I’ve never heard of an Outer Rim level, Commander, and I’ve been here since the beginning.” That makes no sense, and Stu responds an appropriate manner. (No, he does not stutter out confused noises, that’s all lies and slander.)

“What? It says right here in the directory that the files I’m looking for were stored there!”

“Well, it seems we’ve got ourselves a mystery then, commander.” The vod responded. Stu rolled his eyes.

“If we’re going to solve a mystery together, you can call me Stu.” That earned him a snort, and beneath his bucket, Stu grinned.

“Then I’m Finder, sir. Are you sure you and Commander ‘Oron are really batchmates, Sir?” Stu removed his helmet as he snorted in response. Finder left his stack of work behind and headed around the desk to join the commander at the directory. He leaned in closer just as Stu had done, and let out a surprised noise. “Yeah, I’ve never seen anything listed in that location before, sir. Wherever it is, it isn’t here.” Then the vod in grey folded the corner of the page, then flipped it back to the back of the book. As if he sensed the question on the tip of Stu’s tongue, he answered it. “At the back of the directory they keep a record of file transfers – if any file has every been transferred in or out of our mysterious level, they’ll keep a record of both the starting & ending locations, as well as the time of departure and time of arrival.”

“And from there, we can figure out the general area the level is located in, and then go by process of elimination until we find it. Clever.” Stu grinned. Finder nodded, but then made a surprised noise. “Finder?”

“Well, I guess finding it won’t be a problem anymore.”

“What?”

“It looks like every single file stored there was transferred out of it back at the start of the Chancellor’s first term.” Stu knew he was telegraphing his shock – it was a habit that he never quite managed to break, despite Alpha-36’s best efforts.

“What? Where to?” Stu asked, and Finder looked up at him in response.

“I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I know where they were transferred to. The bad news is that they were transferred off-planet.” Stu clamped down on a groan before it escaped him.

“Off planet? Where?” The way Finder paused meant the news was only worse. ‘Oron paused the same way. Apparently, ‘Oron was a contagion now.

“You were looking for the files from the Outer Rim Medical Committee, right?” When Stu nodded, Finder continued. “Those appear to have been transferred to a facility on Onderon, sir.”

“Onderon.”

“Yes sir.”

“As in the Separatist planet. In the middle of separatist space.”

“Yes sir.”

Stu gave into his instinct and let his face drop into his hands and groaned. Would it have killed them to make records on datapads?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes sir, sorry sir, the chancellor lost my homework.


	3. The Filing System Failure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fallout of the paperwork being on Onderoon.

When Lieutenant Finder enters Oron’s office, (shut up Stu, it’s more an office that what he has), he has The Murder Look on his face. Oron can feel his headache getting worse already, and the day has barely started. Finder goes limp down into his seat at the left-most shared desk, dropping a familiar thick tome onto the long buffet table that had been repurposed from a senator’s former apartment. (And honestly, the carbon scoring on it wasn’t bad.)

“Lieutenant Finder,” Oron calls out to the exhausted-looking vod. “Why do you have the directory, and why is it here?” He carefully keeps his tone level, even going so far as to school his face into something looking like calm. It wouldn’t do to scare his Vod’ika. At least until he explained.

“Well, Commander, the answer to that is simple. The Republic Filing System.” A groan rings out from all around the room, and Oron very careful does not join in. but it’s a near thing. Instead, he casually raises a single eyebrow at his SiC, unimpressed. The Republic Filing System is inconvenient every day, this hardly justifies the removal of a Republic Resource. Oron adjusts the wrist cuff of his greys, waits. “But wait, there’s more. The Republic Filing System? It’s even more of a mess that we knew.” Oh great sith-hells, how could that be in the realm of possibility? The thing is already a walking mess of contradictions and poor choices.

“Lieutenant. Sitrep.” He bites out before he decides that kark protocol, and tacks on a “Vod.” The room bubbles with all the comments that Oron’s men want to make, but he crosses his arms, silently daring anyone to try.

“Sir, on my last shift, I ended up in The Senate Basement and ran into the Warehouse Commander,” and of course. Of course, Stu is involved. Stu is predetermined by the force to be a total pain in Oron’s shebs. If Oron ever meets a Jedi, Oron will be sure to get them to confirm that for him. Oron carefully does not react. It’s a testimony to his training. “And together, we discovered something… interesting in the directory.” Oron motions for Finger to continue. Finder opens the directory to a page he had marked and reads aloud. “The Committee on Outer Rim Medical Care’s third official survey was stored on The Outer Rim Level of The Senate Basement.” There is palatable confusion in the room. It’s okay. Oron is confused as well.

“There are other levels to The Senate Basement?”

“How would that work?”

“The basement sublevels are all supposed to be organized by an Aubresh-Numeric system!”

The vode in the room are all muttering to themselves, a din roar of noise that builds in the corners of the room. Oron tunes it out, gesturing instead for his SiC to continue. Finder turns to a second page farther into the book.

“File Transfer, 969 ARR. Files MD-OR-850900 were transferred from The Outer Rim Level to SB-ORW-23.” Finder reads aloud, and he might as well be doing one those dumb fill-in-the-space games that were popular in blanks with, except that rather than a story, they were filling in official Republic paperwork. The din of confusion becomes a low roar. Everyone has something to say about this banthapoodoo.

“Udesii, gev!” Oron barks out the order, and the reaction is near-instantaneous as every vod in the room shuts up and sits back down at their desk. He’s so proud, his men are so well trained, they’re a far cry from the stories of nonsense that are always buzzing his priority alert. “Lieutenant, continue?” He can feel that Finder has yet to announce his biggest news.

“Yes sir.” Finder closes the book and looks Oron dead in the eyes, which is never a good sign. “Following separatist’s… separation from the republic, it appears that SB-ORW-4 through SB-ORW-21, SB-ORW-33 through SB-ORW-39, and at least 35 other single ones were in systems now declared separatist space.” This time, not a single vod makes a noise. You could hear a pin drop. Everyone sends a brief glare at the sergeant who appeared to have picked an inopportune time to re-arrange his desk. “As of now,” Finder continues, “We have no knowledge of what files are in separatist hands, no knowledge of how outdated it is, or even if the Separatists know they have it.” In unison, the troopers in the room turn to face their commander. Oron takes a deep breath – this isn’t planning out who will keep records from what senate committee. This is an actual, vital to the war effort security risk.

“Corporal Tray.” The vod from the left desk snaps to attention. “Take a squadron. I need all the transfer records… starting in 969 ARR until 978 ARR. Lieutenant Disk, take two squadrons. Comb the records until you know all there is to know about the SB-ORWs. Bring any and all appropriate files back here. Lieutenant Ink. You’re in charge of making sure all the senate shifts are covered today. Light cover – talk to the Guard if you need to, pull from there to cover security, or from Commander Calc over at the hotline.” All three men snap out of attention with purpose, gathering men to them to form up squadrons and assigning tasks. “Lieutenant Finder, go take a nap. Or better, 8 hours of rest. I don’t want to see you until you’ve done that and gotten at least one meal. The rest of you?” He says, as Finder nods reluctantly and begins to gather his things. The 70 or so vode left in the room turn to him. “We’re going to begin combing through what records we have here already. Create a list of Separatist planets to cross-reference and a list of all the committees their senators have sat on in the past.”

Despite the size and scale of the task ahead of them, all of Oron’s men snap to. Despite being stationed on Coruscant, he’s still got some of the best soldiers in the whole GAR, and they still perform to the high standards instilled and drilled into them on Kamino. Oron’s comm beeps, and he looks down.

_ Priority Alert: _

_Cody:_ _All hands. The next unit to deploy Torrent’s bouncy bombs without proper warning will be taking the next Felucia campaign._

Oron wishes he could say the same for the rest of the CCs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Udesii, gev!" literally means calm down, pack it in, but in this context, he's very politely telling his men to shut the fuck up. 
> 
> Shorter chapter because the muse was not in this story this week.


	4. Calc's No-Good, Very Bad Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Calc commands the Clone Intelligence Tip Line, where his men receive more than ten thousand tips of 'Separatist Activity' every day. 
> 
> His day manages to just be actually terrible.

“Thank you for calling the Clone Intelligence Tip Line, how may I help you today?”

After working in Clone Intelligence for over a year, Calc still has days where he’s pretty sure that if he has to hear a vode answer the phone again, there’s going to be a murder. He’s not sure who yet. But it will likely be good for his blood pressure. And hey, murder is one of the few things that can happen in the entire galaxy that wouldn’t cause paperwork for his division.

“Thank you for calling the Clone Intelligence Tip Line, how may I help you today?”

Cal does his best not to twitch. Normally it isn’t quite this bad, but the door to his office was damaged when some senator had hired a bounty hunter to destroy evidence of their corruption. Not that it would be that easy, or that this was where evidence of corruption was stored long-term. The Senator just had to pay to have Calc’s office wrecked, and now the normally soundproof room was… definitely less so. Also, there was glass on the floor. Calc doesn’t know where from. He has no windows in this office.

“Thank you for calling the Clone Intelligence Tip Line, how may I help you today?”

With a sigh, Calc sets aside the reports written on _actual flimsy_ and pulls his datapad out. If he’s going to have to listen to this all day, he’s going to work on a petty personal project in revenge. And revenge is what he’s seeking – normally, corruption charges are noted, passed to the chancellor, and then forgotten about. Especially if there’s any actual weight to them – it’s the purview of the Senate Guard to deal with this kind of thing, and over half the time they might actually be involved in the corruption these days.

But. The senator from the Both system had made this personal. The broken system wasn’t enough for them. They had to hire someone to come into Calc’s building and tear through the whole thing. The office, Calc would probably get over in a couple of tendays. But the bounty hunter had been hired hadn’t stopped there. The tholothian had torn through the desks and personal spaces of more than fifty of Calc’s vode as well.

“Thank you for calling the Clone Intelligence Tip Line, how may I help you today?”

The bounty hunter had brought a large armed crew in with him and had held all 300 members of the night crew at gunpoint while he did it. (The night crew was almost always made up of the shiniest members of Clone Intelligence, given that the night shift simply took down a record of all the tips they received and set them aside, any and all actually research and follow-through would be done when then much larger day staff arrived in the morning.)

Right now, Calc’s night crew was almost entirely speedies who had been given almost no combat training because the long-necks had marked them as administrators right away. Some of Calc’s men were still going through growth cycles! Most of them didn’t even bring a blaster with them when they came in wearing their greys. They’d been totally unable to resist the small army of bounty hunters, and they had simply had to watch the ransacking. That would never happen again. Calc had put his SiC on it, and when it came to their vod’ikase, Lieutenant Aba would move entire systems to make sure they’re safe. Calc is pretty sure that right now he’s rearranging the entire shift system to make sure that they will have there will always be vode who completed _at least one combat sim_ on duty at all times.

“Thank you for calling the Clone Intelligence Tip Line, how may I help you today?”

Looking down at his datapad, Calc finishes compiling all of the various corruption tips he’d received towards Senator Mamzar, along with the case files from the investigation that the Senate Guard had been legally obligated to do. (They just then weren’t required to do anything with what they uncovered) Lieutenant Aba had a friend in the CG who had managed to… borrow the files. Calc began to compose an anonymous message to every news outlet in the Both Sector, when he was disrupted by someone knocking on the edge of his doorframe. When he looked up, one of the younger officers stood there.

“Corporal. Can I help you?” He asks, and the vode throws off a quick salute.

“Sir! We’ve received intel came in that we’re supposed to look into, Sir!”

“Validated tips are supposed to go to Lieutenant Tay and his investigative unit, Corporal. Next office over, the one with a working door.” Calc throws in a small smile to try to diffuse what is clearly a very stressful situation for the other vod. It was a mistake that had been made many times.

“No, sir, Commander, they told me to bring it to you. The intel was passed on from above.” The corporal practically shoves the datapad into Calc’s hands, then retreats back to the doorframe like he can’t believe he had done that. A smile teases the sides of Calc’s face, and he schools his expression back to neutral.

“In that case, thank you. Dismissed, and keep up the good work.” The corporal salutes again and then makes his escape from the office, vanishing from out of sight. Calc sighs, and sets his personal revenge aside for the moment. If this is crossing his desk, it’s Big News. Normally he just keeps this place running, he doesn’t handle many tips – the sheer volume of mistaken or outright false ones that get called in means that anything that even touches his orbit has already gone through four or five checks, and even then they usually skip him these days.

Turning on the datapad, the first thing that Calc sees is that the source on this tip isn’t some random civilian – it’s come directly from Oron and his people, and Calc can honestly say that is a first. What could have happened in the Records department that couldn’t be dealt with immediately?

“Thank you for calling the Clone Intelligence Tip Line, how may I help you today?”

The answer, of course, is a giant karking speederwreck. Oron needs to verify the existence, location, and contacts of what is listed as upwards of seventy Records Warehouses, all of which are located on separatist planets. Because of course, they are. Why would they be anywhere convenient?

“Thank you for calling the Clone Intelligence Tip Line, how may I help you today?”

Calc narrowly avoids throwing his datapad at someone.


	5. Drinking, Crushes, Insurance and Paperwork

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the end of the tenday from hell, the batch goes drinking together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not entirely happy with this, but I think it works now. May update later.

“This tenday was a whole new low.” Oron groans out across the table from Figure, and Stu passes him on of the shots he’d just gotten refilled. Figure doesn’t know what it is, but if it’s the same thing they’ve been drinking all night, it’s strong. Oron tosses the shot back without hesitation. He slams the shot cup back on the table and points a finger at Stu. “Alright, you’re forgiven for now.”

“Forgiven? Forgiven for what? Are- are you guys. Please don’t tell me you’re fighting again.” Figure responds, draining a shot of his own. It’s definitely the same stuff. It’s the mystery alcohol of the month here at 79s, and Figure has no idea what it is, but it is certainly strong. It burns as it goes down.

“The chaos of this week has been entirely his fault. It’s his fault that I am here, with you guys, drowning the chaos of this week.” Oron has a little stack of shot cups in front of him, and he’s leaning slightly. He started without them, and it’s showing.

“Wow.” Calc throws his first shot of the night back as Stu flops into his chair. “I can feel the love from here.” The deadpan is clearly directed at Oron, who responds with a rude gesture.

“How is this my fault?” Stu throws his hands up in irritation, and Figure has to smother a snort. Oron looks dead on at Stu, a look of pure weariness on his face.

“You had to go and uncover more than two hundred remote warehouses that were left out of our briefings, over 90 of which are in separatist space,” Oron comments, and it isn’t quite a deadpan, but it is so incredibly dead inside that Figure worries even more. He’s spent a lot of time learning all of the different tones of his batchmates, and this one is entirely new which is incredibly off-putting, but it’s close enough to the I-haven’t-slept-in-three-days that Figure worries it’s the evolution of it. Hopefully, he will never have to test that theory.

“Two hundred? When the report came to my office, it was just 70 in separatist space.” Calc cuts back in, tossing his own shot back, and crossing his arms in a way that almost hides how hammered he is. Oron gives a long, soul-drained moan.

“No, when it was 70 in separatist space, there were about 150 in total, but the ones in republic space don’t fall under your jurisdiction. One of the shinies called the shebs over at the Guard, and one of their commanders managed to send us a couple of units to help out with those, since they have authorization to leave the planet.” Oron drones out, swaying a little. He’s rambling, too. How many shots did he do before Figure arrived? Figure doesn’t know, but he’s certain the answer is to many. He subtly catches the bartender’s eye, then waves his hand in the symbol that has become commonplace here for cut-them-off. The bartender nods, and Figure sees Stu smirk at him from where he’s sitting, totally sober.

“The Guard? Was- was it Thorn? He’s usually the most helpful.” Figure asks.

“He’s a little more than helpful to you, Vod.” Stu retorts from across the table, and Figure gives him a _look_ because he does not appreciate being thrown as bait into the waters.

“Kark, hold on, does our littlest brother have a boyfriend?” Oron drones out, slurring his Os in a way that makes Figure think he should have cut him off three or four shots ago.

“Wait what? No!” Figure bursts out as soon as the words register, and he works very hard to keep the blush off of his face and his indignation out of his voice.

“Not yet, at least. But Thorn does drop by all the time for really no reason at all.”

“He- he does not!” Figure retorts and Oron is doing a sort of low, drunk, snorting noise that is from deep inside his chest. Calc has said nothing at all but is holding a shot up strategically in front of his mouth, the way he so often does with things to hide a smile. Figure can’t believe they’re mocking his pain here. They’re all traitors. He has no batchmates.

“Oh sure, because dropping off a pastry from a place that his co-commander’s boyfriend’s Jedi recommended was absolutely a legitimate reason to travel halfway across town,” Stu responds with relish, and okay, Figure is hardly in denial. Stu may have a point. Luckily, he is spared admitting that by a deep moan of pain from Oron, and the sound of said Vod’s face slamming against the table.

“Jedi.” He groans out the single word, and Figure grabs onto that train of thought like a drowning man thrown a rope.

“What have the Jedi done to you today?” Calc comments with the casual air of someone who has been on the receiving end of that groan all the time.

“Did you know. That in order for the Order’s super Jedi spies to work with us. They have to submit a full outside partnership form. Despite also working for the senate and with the GAR?” Oron moans from the tabletop, and a Figure suppresses a wince. He knows the form in question. It was created around 300 years ago and has not been updated since. He has to fill one out for each vendor he works with, and it is hands down the second worst part of this job. Second only to statistical analysis, and even then it’s close. “And did you know. That the Jedi order has not ensured all of their speeders here on Coruscant in 90 years? But for the outside partnership form to be approved, they have to. And they haven’t.”

“Wait, but if you want their spies’ help, isn’t it to check out the other warehouses?” Stu asks, and Oron makes a noise that Figure interprets as agreement. Stu clearly does the same, as he continues. “Why does it matter if their speeders here on Coruscant are insured? It’s not like they’ll be driving them at this point.” Even Figure snorts there.

“Welcome to Republic Intelligence.” Calc deadpans at Stu and downs the last shot on the table.

“Welcome to the Senate.” Oron moans from the table.

Figure gets ready to call a ride to get them home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok, so there was never supposed to be a romance here. Thorn/Figures just... snuck up on me. It was leftover from a draft that will never see the light of day about them getting cake together and complaining about the commanders they work with. 
> 
> help.

**Author's Note:**

> I always knew that there had to be a ton of 'desk job' organizations running behind the scenes of the GAR, an army of that size does not run on its own. This was really just an excuse to explore that. It was a lot of fun. I hope you enjoyed it? And if for some reason you are here without having read Soft Wars, what are you doing? Project0506 is one of the greatest authors in this fandom today, and you should definitely go check out her work, as well as other works by others in this universe. (Everything is soft and it only hurts in a really good way)
> 
> Enjoy!


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